Paceman Dernbach in awe of demolition man Dhoni

Many of the 58 runs came off the bruising willow of Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the batting Power Play and beyond, and Dernbach was almost in awe of the Indian captain when he said on Sunday evening, “He is a fantastic player. As a bowling unit, we just need to find a way of getting him out as is the case in any game, in any Power Play. That’s the exciting part of the game. He is a great player, is Dhoni, as is the Indian team in general.”

Dhoni has made four half-centuries on the trot against England, remaining unbeaten thrice. “He is a world-class player, he has batted for long periods of time. In games that India have won, he seems to be the man that has been quite destructive,” Dernbach noted. “His ability to hit boundaries makes him so dangerous. You saw the other night, a couple of yorkers which were missed by matter of inches soared away to the boundary for six. That just shows the margin of error is very small and we need to be better at honing our skills.”

At the same time, Dernbach said England weren’t despondent after the 126-run drubbing in the first one-dayer. “Obviously, we are disappointed with the result the other night. We just didn’t play very well. It’s something we will have to try and correct. We have got four games to rectify that situation. We need to get better at in every facet of the game. We were outplayed in all three departments and if we can improve in each of those, we will have a better chance of winning games.”

Dernbach acknowledged that touring India was a challenge. “Any time you come overseas, and especially in this case playing against the World champions in their own patch, is going to be a difficult task. But it’s just one of those days when things didn’t go well for us. We have to play better cricket, which we know we can like we produced back home this summer.

“The conditions here are very different from what we experience back home. We just have got to adapt as best as we can and find a way. That’s the thing about this series. We have to find a way of winning, we can’t come up with excuses saying the pitches are different. We know what to expect, we have had good preparation for ten days.”